Search results for: "Skillfulness"

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  2. Developed in Body & Mind
     … As the Buddha said, as long as you haven’t reached the end of suffering, don’t be satisfied with your level of skill. See what you can do to learn more. We’re practicing mindfulness, alertness, ardency, trying to bring them all together at the breath. You’re trying to bring the mind into concentration, but you don’t think the word “concentration … 
  3. Full, Focused Attention
     … As you get more and more skillful at that, you can begin to look at the mind as it’s looking at the process of breathing. Everything you need to know is right here. The Buddha talks about four ways of establishing mindfulness—on the body in and of itself, feelings in and of themselves, mind in and of itself, or mental qualities in … 
  4. Wealth Worth Holding Onto
     … But if you hold onto skillful things, then it’s a lot easier to let go of the unskillful ones. So as we’re developing virtue, concentration, and discernment, remember that these are your valuables. Because the things of the world come and go. People, relationships, come and go. There was a novel I read one time called The Good Soldier. It’s narrated … 
  5. Only Natural
     … That’s a skill. During my first time with Ajaan Fuang, I asked him one day about the needs of the body. I said, “How can you follow the celibate life? The body has its needs.” And he replied, “The body doesn’t have any needs. The body would be perfectly content to die. We’re the ones who have the needs. We’re … 
  6. Wisdom, Compassion, Purity
     … You want to be able to find a sense of well-being simply in the knowledge that you’ve done something skillful, because that’s going to be a lot of your energy on the path. The other part of the energy, of course, is getting the mind in concentration. It enables you to see your actions a lot more clearly and it puts … 
  7. A Becoming Critic
     … A good part of the skill of concentration is learning how to stay centered no matter what the circumstances are around you. Now, we try to create an ideal environment here, or as close to an ideal as we can, making it quiet, promoting a set of values that recognizes the worth of this practice. But for concentration to be really good, you have … 
  8. The Burning House
     … In fact, when the Buddha talks about the importance of being right in the present moment—and it’s interesting that he doesn’t talk about it that much—but when he does, it’s because he realized that there are things that have to be done before you die if you want to die well—in other words, to die with skill. You … 
  9. Reliable Action
     … In other words, the quality of intention determines the result of the action As you observe your intentions, you can get a better and better sense of which ones are skillful and which ones are not. This puts you more in control. Of course, then you deal with the issue of things that you know would be good to do but something inside you … 
  10. Head, Heart, & Gut
     … the discernment that, on the one hand, admits causality, so that when you do something unskillful, you’re not surprised by bad results; and, on the other hand, also believes it is possible to do something skillful to get good results—so good that they can put an end to suffering. You always want to keep that in mind because so much of society … 
  11. There’s Work to Be Done
     … We are creating skills, developing skills, and we are shaping things, so you want to see how you’re shaping them. Ajaan Lee talks about seeing where you do have some control over things: where you can fight against the perception of inconstancy by creating a sense of constant well-being and a constant focus; how you can fight against the perception of dukkha … 
  12. Friends
     … As you breathe, you can experiment to see exactly how much you’re contributing to the present moment—how much of it is skillful, how much of it is not. And you’re learning to see what this breath has to offer here. What can it teach you? One of the things they have to do when they set up an experiment is to … 
  13. Seeds of Becoming
     … But that’s a skill that has to be developed. The more it’s developed, the better your chances are of having that skill in your repertoire when you really need it. So, this is why we keep focusing back in at the present, the present, the present. We talk sometimes about the future, we talk sometimes about the past, but the main point … 
  14. Mindfulness: The Whole Formula
     … As for skillful things that are not there yet, you try to give rise to them. And when they are there, you try to maintain them in such a way that you don’t allow new unskillful things to arise. So, there’s a lot of activity involved—a lot more than is usually assumed. As with the qualities of alertness and ardency: You … 
  15. Understanding Happiness
     … What it comes down to is looking at things in terms of cause and effect, and what’s skillful and unskillful—what actions, what words, what thoughts are skillful, in the sense of not causing harm, not causing a sense of burden. This is the important set of criteria to use. As the Buddha once said, the beginning of wisdom is when you ask … 
  16. Mindfulness Immersed in the Breath
     … You want to sensitize yourself to this area because it’s from this point of view that you can see more clearly what’s going on in the mind, what’s going on in the body, and the extent to which you’re manipulating these sensations in a skillful or unskillful direction: unskillful in the sense of creating greater stress, a greater sense of … 
  17. Sensual Passion
     … We start out here, in a quiet place like the monastery, but you want to be able to take this skill with you as you leave, and you can take it because the breath is there with you all the time. It’s just that as soon as we leave the monastery, the mind goes back to its old habits. Sometimes when you look … 
  18. Concentration & Insight
     … And the skill that comes into the meditation is getting that intuitive sense I mentioned just now: When do you need more rest? When do you need to ask more questions? When the questions hit a dead end, it’s time to go back and get some more rest. When the stillness in the mind has had enough, you can go back to questioning … 
  19. The Most Important Thing to Be Doing
     … how inspiring his example was in going out and putting his life on the line to find the very skill that we’re practicing right now. And when he came back from his awakening, he didn’t charge money for his teaching. All he asked was that people be honest and observant in looking into their own hearts and minds to see where they … 
  20. The Good Fight
     … That skill is useful in all areas of life. When you’re sick and find the mind dwelling on things that make you miserable, you can tell yourself, “I don’t need to go to those thoughts. No matter how true they may be, they’re not useful right now. They’re not beneficial. This is not the time and place for them.” And … 
  21. Monotasking
     … There are lots of elements to this one skill. You’re balancing lots of different things, so it may take a while to gain that sense of balance. But realize that it’s really worth the effort and the time. One of the main problems with multitasking is that it teaches you to be very impatient. You want something done as quickly as possible … 
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